Month: October 2018

X Vintage and Junk & Old New arrival

Tim says:

This sentence is a bit awkward because it has two “and”s in it. Why not just say “Vintage, junk, and old”?

But really, in Japanese the terms “junk” and “old” are a bit different than they are in English. “Vintage” is just a nicer way to say “old”; basically, the words mean the same thing. Rather than “old”, it would be better to say “used.”

As for junk, in Japan it means that it’s broken but someone might buy it for spare parts. As far as I know, it’s only used this way informally in the U.S.

Also, this sign has no nouns, but three adjectives! (“Junk” could be a noun, but it’s not used that way on this sign.) So I added “goods” to the sign.

Also, did only one new item arrive? I would think that “arrival” should be plural…

O Vintage and used goods New arrivals

周囲にある英語を見て、果たしてそれが正しい英語なのだろうかと感じる英語はありますか？「あの英語は絶対に間違っている」という英語の表記はありますか？看板の写真を撮って、Machigai.comに送りましょう！とんでもない英語だったら、このコーナーで出します！